Avalanche: "Better Looking Games Won't Save The Games Industry"

Avalanche Studios' boss, Christofer Sundberg, has stated that he doesn't believe power or graphics will be the crucial factor when it comes to next-gen, nor the widely-touted free-to-play model, but rather that publishers and platform holders will need to find a middle ground that combines traditional consoles with new business models.

"To sound exceptionally boring, I can't comment much on next-gen platforms," he said. "However, better looking games won't save the games industry - I can say that much.

"What companies such as Ngmoco have been talking about very actively in the press is partly true. Traditional business models are dead and if you want to survive as an independent studio you have to think outside the box."

Ngmoco Stockholm's Ben Cousins said last month that he felt there'd be a free-to-play game to rival the scale of Skyrim within the next few years.

"I believe that single-player will be the next to be cracked in terms of freemium monetisation," he said. "And I'm talking about traditional, story-based, scripted, linear and non-linear single-player that we see on consoles.

"I am totally 100 per cent confident - I will bet large amounts of money - that we will have, in the next few years, a free-to-play equivalent of Skyrim. A game like Skyrim, where you accrue skills and equipment over time, that you can play for hundreds of hours, is actually one of the easiest games to develop for a free-to-play model. That would be a big hit."

But that's not something Sundberg goes along with, suggesting that there are no sweeping general fixes, or "Silver-bullets", and that jumping on every opportunity out there is tantamount to suicide.

"I don't believe in the F2P model either and consoles are far from dead," he said. "How we combine the traditional consoles with new business models will be absolute key to success - not one way or the other.

"Since the recession of 2008/09 everybody has been looking for that Silver-bullet to save the games industry and jumps on every opportunity there is - developing a quirky PSN/XBLA game or building your own F2P game. That is suicide." [Eurogamer]